Anita Talks About His Injury And His New Role In The Side

It looks like Vurnon Anita injured his back on Sunday against the Saints, when he fell badly on it after trying to head the ball away.

Vurnon was one of our best players at the end of last season and played one of his best games ever for the club when it really mattered against West Ham on May 24th, when we only just survived relegation under John Carver.

Vurnon Anita receiving treatment before being carried off Vurnon seems to have picked up where he left off last season, although he will be hoping the back injury is not too bad, and that he can be available for the game at Swansea on Saturday afternoon.

The 26-year-old Dutch International has talked in the Chronicle at length about the injury and also how things stand at Newcastle right now:

“I felt a pain in my back and when I tried to stand up the pain was so bad I couldn’t walk.” “I tried to put pressure on my left leg when I stood up but I couldn’t.”

“I’ve had a lot of ice on it so we’ll see how it feels after a little bit of time. Hopefully, I won’t need a scan or anything like that.”

“It was great to get the nod to start the first game.“ “There’s a lot of competition in central midfield now, but hopefully that will only be good for all of us.”

“We need that to keep each other sharp and hopefully the team will benefit from having so many good players in the same position.”

“Each player knows they will have to be doing their best because if they’re not, there’s always going to be someone else to come in.”

“This is my third season now and I feel like I’m settled here as a Premier League player.”

“The first year was a little bit difficult in terms of settling in but I feel like I’m here now and much more comfortable with the pace of the English game.”

“You have to go into each season feeling as though the position is your own.” “That’s the only way to be confident about yourself and it’s the only way you’re going to be able to go out on to the pitch and play your own game.”

“I think it helps that the manager has experience of Dutch football, and has a style fairly similar to what I would be used to in Holland.”

“The way he sets his team up is fairly similar to a lot of Dutch sides, and the role I am playing now is the most similar to the one I used to play in at Ajax.”

“Hopefully, that will mean I can fit in more easily than maybe before.”

It is Vurnon’s fourth season at Newcastle, since he was the only senior player signed in the summer of 2012, after we had finished 5th top.

That lack of signings was a big mistake, and we didn’t have enough players to also compete in the Europa League and we subsequently struggled with relegation.

Hopefully this season will be like the 2011-2012 season and we can do really well again.

That’s exactly what’s needed now.

Comments welcome.

Note: 18 year-old Harvey Fitzpatrick is a Newcastle fan and an avid reader of this site – and he is fundraising for cancer research as part of the Macmillan’s ‘Brave the Shave’ campaign they are currently running.

On 18th of August Harvey will be shaving his hair off in support of the cancer fund drive – please see if you can support Harvey by donating on his Brave the Shave site.

19 comments so far

Understand this is not a tech blog, but due to all the chat about kodi, I put it on my tablet and it’s great. Currently abroad and struggled to get any bandwidth with a vpn, couldn’t even watch iplayer without having to wait minutes between every 30 seconds of play….this is now over

wayamen, From previous, not sure if there’s that much difference between useless and ineffective and besides your description of the way he breaks up attacking moves would be best described as pretty useless.

Everyone that is raving and excited about willems, I want to ask if you have seen him play before or have you just seen the youtube clips? I’ve seen a fair bit and admit he would be a very good signing but he is not a very defender at this time but has great potential. His awareness and positioning isn’t good and is usually sorted out because he is rapid. But in a team like ours, he would get exposed more often because he would have more defending to do than say at a team he has been linked with. Don’t get me wrong, he is very good attacking, very good with fantastic crossing for the strikers but if I was to but a left back I would hope they would be solid in defence and anything else is a bonus.

You’re not watching a game of football when you’re watching on tv. You’re following the action of a football game around the pitch. The massive benefit of being at the game in a good seat is being able to see the whole game. There’s so much of game going on that’s not picked up on tv. I’m sure that’s why Makro and Costco were up in the stands.

I don’t agree Obertan was useless. He had a decent game and did a job on a par with Anita and Colback. At the game you could watch him at any given time if you so wished. You can’t on tv. I’d be surprised if he is dropped.

Whoscored on Anita’s performance rather goes against what the general agreement is on his performance, stats wise he was 4th worst on the pitch, 2nd of anyone who spent a decent length of time on the pitch

I’ve seen abdennour hasn’t gone to Barcelona, surprise surprise. Agents do take the biscuit sometimes. Juventus have recently failed to get him also. If we really wanted him I really believe we could get him.

Whoscored is quite good but you have to take it with a pinch of salt at times. One of defenders I want us to get, kamil glik has his strengths and weaknesses listed. It says one of his weakness is aerial ability but if you watch him even for one game you will see that is so far from the truth it’s unreal.

Anita has great balance on the ball and better vision than Colback, though Jack is a better defender. Speaking of, we need a CB with some pace. Colo looked so slow. I don’t know about Mbemba. Didn’t really see him running back to try to catch anyone.

League Placement

health update

I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in February 2017 and completed four months of chemotherapy in late July and will continue to have hormone treatment.

The cancer spread in the bones but it has been stabilized and has not spread further.

I am still recovering from some of the side effects of the chemo treatment - it's mainly severe fatigue and exhaustion.

Stage 4 cancer is not curable so I will continue to have cat scans and bone scans every four months to ensure the cancer is not spreading.

It is as it is - these things happen - and I will do my very best under the circumstances.

Ed Harrison

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